Summer's Lease
by butterflydreaming
Summary: Yue, Kero, and Clow somewhere warm and tropical. Another young Yue, young Kero story.


*Summer's Lease* 

(A one shot distraction.  Young Cerberus & Yue.  Post "Wings".)

. . . 

            Cerberus was facinated by the fish, and Yue was facinated by his own reflection.  He studied his face, a ghostly shadow on the skin of the water, while he ignored the variety of sea life darting below.  His mirror self gazed back at him analytically; long-lashed eyes narrowed while they cataloged his features.  The lips moved in echo when he spoke, revealing white and perfect teeth.  "Do I look right to you?" he asked his sibling.

            Cerberus did not even look up.  He twitched an ear in Yue's direction, the only indication that he was listening at all.  Lifting a paw with an almost mechanical slowness, he poised his foot to strike at the tiny, colorful flashes that moved in the tide pool.  Yue watched as the lion paused without moving, except for the sharp flickering at the tip of his tail.  Then all at once, the paw struck out like a flash of liquid gold, quickly through the water's glassine surface.  He tossed the small fish into the air, where it wriggled frantically before falling back into the pond.

            "Heh heh," Cerberus laughed smugly.  The little fish, unhurt, swam deeper into the craters of obsidian rock.  "You should try that," Cerberus, pointing a toe at the water, suggested to Yue.  "I bet you're not fast enough."

            "I could do it," Yue murmured, watching his reflection return as the water stilled.  He waited for his mirror-self to sharpen.  The locks around his face wavered the way moonlight reflects on a moving ocean, in long straight bands that shimmered.  With palms pressed on the sand and loose rock, he leaned in more deeply, and the tips of his loose hair almost disturbed the now-quiet image.  Yue widened his eyes.  He watched his pupils become slimmer, the silvery-purple iris contracting against the brilliant sunlight that bounced upward from the watery depths.  "My eyes are like yours," Yue contemplated aloud to Cerberus, "but not the rest of me."  He lifted himself back up, and brushed the loose sand off of his linen shirt.  He tossed back his long hair  and squinted up the beach.  "That's like Clow," he said.

            "More or less," Cerberus agreed.

            Yue turned back to his magical sibling.  "Does that seem right, to you?" he questioned.

            Cerberus looked puzzled.  "Surely," he said.

            "Do you know what I'm asking?" queried Yue with amused tones.

            Cerberus exhaled heavily.  "Not if you're getting philosophical," he countered.  "Again."

            Yue laughed softly.  "It's a valid question," he defended.

            "Which one?" asked the lion.

            Yue tossed his head again, so that his silken hair spilled forward.  "The way I look," he said.  He dropped his eyelids demurely.  "I think that I may be beautiful," he said contemplatively.

            At first Cerberus raised his eyebrows.  Then he guffawed.  "Or narcissistic," he snorted.  He continued whooping with laughter until Yue was plentifully embarrassed.  Yue's shoulders slumped; he bent his knees and propped his chin on their support.  Cerberus finally took pity on him.  "Of course we're beautiful," he told his sibling in an off-hand manner.  "Clow has a good eye."

            Yue stood, and walked up the beach, paying no attention as to whether Cerberus followed him or stayed behind.  He walked through the edges of the breaking waves, feeling the cold wet sand sink under his toes, and the drag of the receding waves on the hems of his pants.  He used to hate getting wet… would have abhored the damp, sticking sand, and the ocean's salty odor… and he still disliked swimming.  But living with Clow and Cerberus, it was impossible not to become accustomed to getting dirty.  And the long baths that came as a reward, he loved.

            He left the shoreline and walked up the drier sand to where his Master was.  Clow was dozing in the shade, a palm hat tipped over his face.  He'd taken his shirt off against the heat and humidity, and was using it as a pillow.  Yue dropped down to kneel in the loose sand beside him.  "Clow," he said.  He waited while the magician twitched awake.

            The sorcerer lifted the hat and peered sleepily at his creation.  Holding the hat's bowl in his hand, he rested his forearm across his forehead, so that the brim of the hat still provided some shade.  Beyond Yue, the sun was fiercely bright.  "Hello,"  he said, yawning.  He bent up one knee, and debated sitting up.

            "Am I pleasing to you?" Yue asked directly, without preamble.

            Clow squinted.  "Yes," he said with a smile.

            "Am I beautiful?" Yue persisted.

            "Breathtakingly," Clow said without hesitation.

            "Why?"

            Clow blinked slowly, unsuccessfully tried to stifle a yawn, and then blinked again to remoisten his eyes.  "Do you mean, what makes you beautiful?," he asked, "or why aren't you other than beautiful?" 

            Yue weighed the choices.  "Both, I think," he answered.

            Clow smiled slyly.  "Because," he then answered, "you are."  Yue crossed his arms and frowned.  Clow chuckled.  "I know that answer doesn't satisfy you," the magician said.

            "It's hardly an answer," Yue grumped.

            Clow laughed, and swatted lightly at his creation with the palm hat.  "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?  Thou art more lovely, and more temperate," he quoted.  "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer's lease hath all too short a date."

            "Now you're quoting Shakespeare at me," complained Yue.  "You and Cerberus have both laughed at me."

            "There, there, now," the magician said, patting at Yue's knee with a jokingly patronizing manner.

            Yue narrowed his eyes, pretending to be furious.  "I should pick you up and dump you in the ocean," he threatened.

            Clow laughed again lightly, paying no heed.  Yue considered: following through on his threat would mean a thorough soaking for himself, he knew.  And Cerberus would love an excuse to frolick in the waves, with the added bonus of dunking his brother.  However, if he let it go, it would likely gnaw at him, putting him in a bad mood that would spoil the afternoon.  He decided that, even without the aide of magic, the day's heat would dry his clothes out quickly enough.

            Pretending that he was only standing to walk away, Yue rose casually.  When Clow again covered his face with the hat, Yue swooped down and lifted his Maker off of the sand, and while the magician yelped in protest, opened his wings and flew out over deep water.  Clow cast him a look of surprized delight before Yue dropped him.  Clow made a satisfying splash when his body met the calm water.

            Yue only had a moment to gloat before Cerberus hit his back, and the two winged creatures joined their Maker in the tropical water.  Yue went under deeply.  The water swirling around him, above and below him, was cool without being cold.  He could see both his companions clearly although they were too far to touch.  Swimming up to the surface in the bouyant salt water was strangely similar to flying.

            Neither Clow nor Cerberus would let him swim back to the shore, until Yue convinced them that fighting both the pull of the current and the weight of wet hair was going to lead to his drowning.  They both followed him in, and Cerberus even apologized for the sudden dunking.

            Yue waved the apology off.  "I expected it," he admitted.  He wrung his hair out by handfuls.

            Clow sat down beside him.  "Are you angry?" he asked.

            "No," answered Yue truthfully.  He shook his head as he spoke.  "Are you?"

            "Of course not," said Clow.  He looked at Yue appraisingly.  He reached out and brushed his thumb over Yue's brows, effectively wiping some of the saltwater from Yue's face.  He passed his fingers over Yue's cheeks.  "Did you just figure it out today?" he asked finally.

            "What do you mean?" asked Yue.

            Clow hummed his amusement.  "I gave you aspects of beauty," he said.  "But you, your uniqueness… you make yourself beautiful."

            Yue considered the answer.  He looked at his Maker, the smiling eyes and the lips touched with humor.  He considered the source, and smiled.

. . . 


End file.
